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We’ll help India fight terror: US
India violating Indus Basin Treaty: Pak
Divert anti-terror aid to upgrade Pak F-16s, Bush admn to Congress
Pak protests reduced water flows by India
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Pak bombs militants; US commander arrives
Brother’s death made Osama ‘a radical’
4 hurt in Colombo bus blast
Vessel with 22 on board hijacked
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We’ll help India fight terror: US
Washington, September 16 “We were distressed to see the terrorist attacks against innocent civilians in India this weekend. We obviously stand with the Indians in trying to fight against terrorism and extremists, and we would help them in any way that we can to fight back ,” White House press secretary Dana Perino said. The Prime Minister is to visit the United Nations to attend the General Assembly meeting and will meet Bush at the White House on September 25. Asked whether President Bush will discuss the issue of terrorism with Singh, Perino replied “Absolutely”, adding that “I know he (Bush) and the Prime Minister will talk about it when he’s here”. During their meeting, the two leaders may sign the Indo-US nuclear deal if the US Congress approves the agreement by then. The senior White House official also said she believed that the latest developments on the global economy would be discussed at the UN with world leaders, including India. “I think there is no doubt that the way our financial system works, that everything is much more globalised and dependent. That’s why secretary Paulson has been talking with his counterparts so frequently in the past several months,” “I’m sure that the economy is going to be a topic at the UNGA meeting, which is going to take place next week. It was a topic at the G-8 meeting, and the G-7 ministers continue to talk about it as well,” Perino said. — PTI
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India violating Indus Basin Treaty: Pak
Pakistan has blamed India of blocking its share of water from the Chenab in violation of the Indus Basin Treaty (1960) and indicated it could seek intervention of the World Bank that had guaranteed the treaty.
Water and power minister Raja Pervez Ashraf on Tuesday presided over a top-level meeting here to discuss the crisis that had jeopardised kharif (summer) crops, including rice, cotton and sugarcane. Water and power secretary Ismail Qureshi told reporters that Pakistan was awaiting Indian response to a demarche sent through the Foreign Office, a few days back. Pakistan has also proposed that its experts be allowed to visit Baglihar Dam being built by India on the Chenab in India-held Kashmir. Under the 1960 treaty, Pakistan was given exclusive rights on two of the five rivers of Punjab, the Jhelum and the Chenab, while India was allowed the same rights on the Ravi, the Beas and the Sutlej. Qureshi said the Indus Basin Treaty allowed India to build hydroelectric plants on its side but Pakistan had the right to receive 100 per cent water for irrigation purposes. He said India was supposed to release a minimum of 55,000 cusecs of water by August 31 but only about half of it was filtering into Pakistan. During an emergency, the government had to divert some water from Mangla dam to bolster supply to hundreds of acres of land irrigated by the Chenab. He said Pakistan recently allowed an Indian delegation to visit the sight of the Neelam Valley Project planned in Azad Kashmir on the Jhelum. India on its part was obligated to facilitate a similar inspection of Baglihar Dam to the satisfaction of Pakistan that it was not using the Chenab water to fill the dam beyond the agreed dates. India was supposed to fill the Baglihar dam up to August 31 and that too only if 55,000 cusecs of water was released downstream. Today, the water flow into Pakistan is approximately 20,000 cusecs, significantly less than the average low of 35,000 cusecs. Pakistan suspects that India is filling Baglihar beyond the period it is allowed to and over and above what is permissible, Qureshi said. He said the Indian High Commission in Islamabad had indicated that its government was expected to respond to the Pakistani demarche within next couple of days. Pakistani officials say the reduced supply from India has directly threatened the fields of basmati rice on either side of the Chenab, dealing a potentially heavy blow to the economy.
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Divert anti-terror aid to upgrade Pak F-16s, Bush admn to Congress
The Bush administration on Tuesday urged Congress to divert hundreds of millions of dollars from anti-terrorism funds to upgrade Pakistan’s ageing fleet of F-16s.
Donald Camp, principal deputy assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, told lawmakers at a hearing that the fighter jet had become “an iconic symbol of our bilateral relationship and our commitment to each other.” He asked lawmakers to approve the administration’s request to re-direct the $110 million in 2008 Foreign Military Financing for the Mid-Life Update of the F-16s and an additional $142 million in the future. New York Democratic Congressman Gary Ackerman, chairman of the House subcommittee on the west Asia and South Asia, has been a longtime opponent of the sale of F-16s to Pakistan. “I, so far, remain unconvinced… that Pakistan needs F-16s to assist us in the fight against terror,” he said on Tuesday. Ackerman complained that the Bush Administration’s request has been made despite earlier assurances that with the exception of $109 million, the rest of the cost of the F-16 programme would be borne by the Government of Pakistan, not the taxpayers of the United States. Noting this is a perilous time for Pakistan and crucial one for American policy there, Ackerman said, “It’s imperative that we get it right.” “We could start by ensuring that we are providing Pakistan with the equipment and training needed to effectively fight terror rather than spending our money and theirs on weapons systems simply to make Pakistani generals feel good about themselves,” the lawmaker added. Camp contended updates to Pakistan’s F-16s would make these aircraft far more effective against terrorist targets. In the early 1980s, the US government agreed to sell Pakistan 111 F-16s. In October 1990, the Pressler Amendment imposed sanctions on Pakistan after President George
H.W. Bush was unable to certify that Pakistan was not developing a nuclear weapon. “The Pressler sanctions led to a decade-long suspension of security assistance to Pakistan and a deficit of trust between our two countries that we are still working to overcome,” Camp said. The sanctions led to the cancellation of an additional sale of F-16s to Pakistan that would have augmented the 40 F-16s Pakistan purchased in 1982. “That cancellation has been viewed as a symbol of the collapse of our relationship during the 1990s, a period which remains highly emotional for many Pakistanis,” Camp said. He further said the F-16s provide a “critical counter-terrorism capability” to Pakistan and the Pakistan Air Force has recently made extensive use of its aging F-16 fleet to support Pakistan Army operations in the Swat Valley and in the Bajaur Agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. However, he said, the Pakistani Air Force’s current model F-16 can be used for close air support missions only in daylight and good visibility. They cannot be employed at night, a fact, he said, was not lost of the
Taliban. “The US F-16s use day-night, all weather, air-dropped precision-guided munitions to great effect in Iraq; and we believe Pakistan should be able to use this capability to achieve our shared goals in countering militants along its western border,” Camp said. US intelligence officials say Pakistan, which has received billions of dollars from the US since 2001, has been directing some of this money to prepare for war against India. A similar claim was recently made by Barack
Obama, the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate.
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Pak protests reduced water flows by India
Islamabad, September 16 The irrigation needs of the area are being currently met by increased releases from the Mangla dam reservoir in order to save rice and sugarcane crops. The water shortfall is also expected to affect the coming rabi crops because of a depletion in resources at Mangla. Over the past two months, Pakistan had protested against India at least six times over violation of the Indus Waters Treaty, permanent Indus commissioner Syed Jamaat Ali Shah said. Shah added that the Indian high commissioner in Islamabad had been called by the foreign office on September 5 to convey Pakistan’s concern over the river situation. According to an estimate, the Indus commissioner said, India had deprived Pakistan of about 200,000 acre-feet of water over the past few weeks. — UNI
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Pak bombs militants; US commander arrives Khar (Pakistan), September 16 The violence came as the top US military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, arrived in Pakistan where stepped up US strikes on militants on the Pakistani side of the Afghan border have angered Islamabad and strained relations between the allies. Mullen said this month he was not convinced Western forces were winning in Afghanistan and he was “looking at a new, more comprehensive strategy” that would cover both sides of the border, including Pakistan’s tribal areas. — Reuters
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Brother’s death made Osama ‘a radical’
London, September 16 “His brother was killed in America in a microlight crash and that’s what started to send him crazy. Before that he had been a normal guy really. He was a bit of a man about town and being very rich he enjoyed a bit of the high life.There was no clue that he would go on to do what he has done. You could talk to him and he’s reasonably friendly.I worked for the Bin Laden family a lot and that’s how I first came across
Osama,” the Daily Mail quoted Arthur Riding as saying. Riding, now retired and staying in Britain, claimed to have met the world’s most wanted terrorist when he worked as a security contractor for the multi-millionaire Bin Laden family’s construction empire in Saudi Arabia in the 1970s. In fact, the meeting came when he was asked to install bazooka-proof glass at Bin Laden’s opulent summer house. — PTI
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4 hurt in Colombo bus blast
Colombo, September 16 The explosion inside the public transport bus at Horton place "marks another LTTE attempt to cause mayhem in the island's capital targeting innocent civilians, when it is facing fierce assaults by the security forces in Kilinochchi and Mullaittivu districts," a defence ministry statement said. On detecting the suspicious package inside the bus, the conductor asked the passengers to offload immediately and informed the police, sources said. However, the explosion took place before the bomb disposal squad could reach the site, slightly injuring four people. "No civilian fatalities were reported due to the explosion," Colombo National Hospital sources said, adding that four persons had been admitted due to the shock caused by the explosion. "Commuters are advised to use alternative routes to avoid heavy traffic," the police said. — PTI
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Vessel with 22 on board hijacked
Kuala Lumpur, September 16 The vessel from Hong Kong was heading towards Asia through a maritime security corridor in the Gulf, patrolled by an international naval force when it was attacked yesterday, Noel
Choong, who heads the piracy reporting centre of the International Maritime Bureau
(IMB) here, said. — PTI
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Indians among highest consumers of digital gadgets Ganesh idols immersed in UK Asian doc convicted Indians launch party in Israel 
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